Jamilgate: The AP non-corrects again

posted at 4:19 pm on January 31, 2007 by Bryan

Except one thing. In its initial report, the AP accused the Iraqi Army unit on the scene of standing by while Shia attackers dragged six Sunnis out of a mosque, doused them with kerosene and then set them alight, killing them. The AP’s latest report on Hurriya just glides right past that serious and unsubstantiated allegation.

The AP’s original and so far unretracted report, sourced to Jamil Hussein, was a smear of the Iraqi Army. According to the US military’s official report, the responding Iraqi unit, the 1/1/6 of the IA, called the local fire station to put out the fire at one of the mosques and attempted to capture the attackers. The unit, which included an Iraqi general, remained on the scene until the situation had calmed. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

The AP and Jamil Hussein smeared them by accusing them of standing by doing nothing while the attackers murdered six Sunnis with kerosene fire. Kerosene doesn’t burn quickly–it has a high flash point and burns slowly. The murders would have taken a few minutes, long enough for any IA unit on the scene to put out the fire and capture the militia fighters who started it.

But of course, none of that actually happened according to the military’s official incident report. And there’s no evidence beyond the word of Jamil Hussein that it did happen. It’s hard enough to stand up the Iraqi Army when it’s in the middle of a war inside its own country. Media smears when they do the job our troops are training them to do don’t help at all.

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The AP is just ignoring the problems with their Jamil Hussein stories and pretending they don’t exist, in hopes that others will give up on pursuing the actual truth. Thus, once everybody gives up, the pressure’s off, and they continue business as usual as if nothing happened.

Nice report Bryan. I think the AP wants to wait you out though. I think they are betting they can hold their fingers in their ears and scream “Lalalalala I can’t hear you!” long enough for you to lose interest. Keep their feet to the fire. Thank you.

An Associated Press reporter who lives in the neighborhood, and whose name has been withheld from this story for security reasons, visited the mosques Friday.

WTF DOES THAT MEAN? You had a frigging reporter who lived in the neighborhood, but it took him how many months to investigate the local mosques? What sort of reporter is he anyway? What are his credentials and affilitions? How long has he been writing for AP? Is he just some schmuck off the street or what? Can I call myself an AP Reporter? Hey I just saw something newsworthy, can AP ‘promote’ me to ‘Reporter’ and give me instant absolute truthiness authority?

I’m leaving your comment up, Terp, to serve as a warning to others. I’ve told you again and again and again to stop leaving off-topic stuff in the comments; you continue to ignore me. Next time, that’s it.

And I’m still puzzled Allah regards Terp comments as suitable as “a warning to others.” I’ve asked Allah again and again and again to stop censuring relevant stuff from the comments; he continues to ignore his readers. Each time, I remain unrepentant… and puzzled.

[Note: I merely offered another instance of Leftist media (AP vs. Kos) "correcting the record". I hardly see how that example is "off topic."]

The debate has gone from the “liberal media” to the flat out, unapologetic, anti-American, enemy propaganda machine. To this day the word Nixon carries its own emotional baggage, and for what? That was a scandal? They must have said it was enough times. That’s what they want to do to President Bush, and everyone who stands in their way. Say the war is pointless enough times. Say Bush caused it enough times. Boom-there’s your history. Boom- here’s the Oliver Stone version. The Associated press have become the Matrix. I don’t care how good their steak is, unplug me and get me outta here.

You guys need to ALWAYS put the name “Jamil Hussein” in scare quotes, because there STILL isn’t any Jamil Hussein in the Iraqi Police. There is only the “Jamil Hussein” pseudonymous source. We still have no way of cross-examining him or otherwise evaluating his credibility.

The levosphere thinks we were wrong on this. We weren’t. There is no Capt. Jamil Hussein in the Iraqi Police. None. There is only a “Capt. Jamil Hussein”, or Capt. Jamil X.

Immediately after the Nov. 24 incidents, an Associated Press story quoted an Iraqi police captain saying the four mosques had been attacked and six men doused with fuel and burned alive at one of them. In some early versions of the AP story, which was updated several times as more information became available, the police officer referred to the mosques being burned or blown up.

The AP still insists that they received a report from “an Iraqi police captain” who they now do not name, yet the Baghdad police received no report of men being dragged out and doused with kerosene as stated by the now unnamed source. So just who is the ‘new’ Iraqi police captain that the AP now quotes and why is this quote different from the Baghdad police reports of the incident in question? Looks like the AP is still standing by it’s story and is continuing to issue unsubstantiated statements by unreliable sources.

The AP needs to retract the story and tell the truth. The damage to the mosques was minimal at best and most of the damage occurred during the gun battle, what is referred to as collateral damage, and not as part of a deliberate attack on the mosques. The fire bombing of one, and possible two mosques occurred after the battle, but that damage as very limited as it appears that a Molotov cocktail was used and the damage was limited to the entrance of ONE mosque. At no point were the mosques under deliberate attack and at no point were six men dragged out and killed. The AP owes the Iraqi people and the rest of the world the truth.